If Olympique de Marseille has had great players throughout its history, there are few who have left such a memory to supporters as Jean-Pierre Papin. A leading striker for the Marseille club from 1986 to 1992, he will remain as one of the best scorers in the club's history, winning the Ballon d'Or in 1991. Unfortunately for him, it was after his departure that the team , chaired at the time by Bernard Tapie, will win the Champions League, but not enough to taint the relationship between the player and his favorite club.
As he celebrates his 61st birthday today, Jean-Pierre Papin returned to OM last year for a rescue operation, taking over the club's reserve team. If he aspires to become a coach of a professional club in the future, the one who we saw making a rare outing with his wife Florence for the Ballon d'Or ceremony in 2022 fulfilled his role wonderfully, despite the internal tensions that currently exist. If he remains a big football star, the one we nickname “JPP” wants to be very discreet about his family life. Father of five children, the sportsman from Boulogne-sur-Mer (Pas-de-Calais) has a little girl named Emily, disabled due to brain damage diagnosed a few months after his birth in 1990.
Emily wasn't supposed to be able to walk
Although he rarely mentioned this story, Jean-Pierre Papin agreed to speak about it to journalists from Parisian in 2020. The former footballer, who created the Neuf de Coeur association, whose aim is to help families with children suffering from brain injuries using a multisensory stimulation technique, discusses the first diagnoses concerning his daughter . “A day, I was told in France that it would never work. Now she is able to run 10 km with me every day. We should not always believe what we are told. Emily, this is the fight of a lifetime!“he explains, before adding: “She continues to make progress even though she will be 30 at the end of the month. We know that she will never be like the others. But Emily lives with us as 200% part of the family. We have one more worry than most other parents and we made do with it. (…) You have to be there every day. There are many people who are ashamed of having a disabled child, but they shouldn't be. He's a different child who needs a little more care and affection.”
An everyday fight for the one we saw with red eyes for the tribute mass to Bernard Tapie in 2021. “We managed to bring her back to life in our own world. At first, that wasn't the case. We went to the United States to treat her.”also explained Jean-Pierre Papin to Figaro.
